China’s so-called “peaceful rise” – the term given by the regime in recent years to its claim that China’s rise as a world economic and military power will carry no risk to other nations – has once again been exposed as a cynical crock of propaganda.

A big wake-up call came last January when China blasted one of its own weather satellites out of the sky to test its anti-satellite weapons capabilities. Now comes the latest evidence of the Middle Kingdom’s far more malevolent and militaristic intentions. The Financial Times newspaper reported this month that China’s People’s Liberation Army this summer hacked into highly sensitive military computers ranging from those of the Pentagon to the German government.

The dangers of a militaristically rising China are both clear and present. While China’s economy has been growing at roughly 10 percent a year for almost three decades, China’s military budget is now growing almost twice as fast. That China is developing an offensive force capable of projecting power around the world should be evident to anybody who bothers to look closely.

The PLA maintains the largest ground force in the world – about 1.6 million – while it can mobilize an additional 1.5 million reservists and 1.1 million personnel now serving in the People’s Armed Police. These forces dwarf U.S. armed forces, now forced to rely on National Guard reservists for supplemental troops.

On the high seas, the Chinese navy now has a fleet of almost 100 surface combatants and a growing fleet of nuclear subs capable of hitting American cities with nuclear missiles. China is developing a deep-water navy capability to challenge the U.S. Navy. In the air, China has invested heavily in Russia fighters, principally the Su-27 and 62 Su-30MK. It now has more than 2,000 combat aircraft to support its ground and sea forces.

It is, however, in the area of high-tech warfare where China is becoming the most advanced and dangerous. That’s precisely why this summer’s hacking episode is such a serious matter. Indeed, a major goal of the modern Chinese military is to neutralize, or destroy, America’s technological superiority.

The 1991 Persian Gulf War was China’s epiphany. Its military commanders watched slack-jawed as America used electronic warfare and GPS guided weapons to defeat a large army in a matter of days with minimal casualties. Since that time, China has sought to develop its own ever-more sophisticated electronic war capabilities.

China’s shoot-down of one of its own weather satellites was a test of the system being developed to counter only one enemy, the United States. China has also been testing lasers capable of rendering U.S. satellites deaf, dumb and blind in time of warfare.

As for China’s computer hacking, it has several goals. One is simply to steal military secrets and technology. China has been doing this for decades now. The other goal of China’s hackers is even more dangerous: developing a capability to knock out America’s computer infrastructure in time of war.

For those Panda-hugging Pollyannas who buy into China’s peaceful-rise rhetoric and insist that the only aggressor in the world today is the United States, it may be useful to remember that America has fought proxy war or direct wars with China numerous times – in Korea and Vietnam in the Straits of Taiwan. China has also gone to the nuclear brink with both India and the former Soviet Union and fought a brief but particularly bloody war with Vietnam.

In the coming years, China will likely make its final move on Taiwan. More broadly, as it seeks to feed and fuel its economy, China will invariably come into conflict with the United States and Europe and much of the rest of the world in the competition for oil and natural resources. While China clearly understands this, America remains distracted by events in the Middle East, and a Neville Chamberlain-like Europe seems to have forgotten the lessons of Winston Churchill.

Isn’t it about time that the United States and its allies woke up to the rapidly growing dangers?

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